TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION 1). 733 



of the period of its development and prevalence over a great part of the hahitable 

 globe, but at any rate of tlie period of its reaching the portion of the earth's surface 

 where we now find it. _ One_ great thing to guard against is the presumption that 

 the fauna originated within its present area and has been always contained therein. 

 Thus I take it that the fauna which characterises the New-Zealand Region — for I 

 follow Professor Huxley in holding that a Region it is fully entitled to be called — 

 is the comparatively-little changed relic and representative of an early fauna of much 

 wider range ; that the characteristic fauna of the Australian Region exhibits in the 

 same way that of a later period : and that of the Neotropical Region of one later 

 still. But while the first two Regions have each been so long isolated that a large 

 proportion of their fauna remains essentially unaltered, the last has never been so 

 completely severed, and has received, doubtless from the north, an infusion of more 

 recent and therefore stronger forms ; while, perhaps impelled by the rivalry of these 

 stronger forms, the weaker have blossomed, as it were, into the richness and variety 

 which so eminently characterise the animal products of Central and South 

 America. I make no attempt to connect these changes with geological events, 

 but they will doubtless one day be explained geologically. It is not difficult to 

 conceive that North America was once inhabited by the ancestors of a large pro- 

 portion of the present Neotropical fauna, and that the latter was wholly, or almost 

 wholly, thrust forth — perhaps by glacial action, perhaps by the incursion of stronger 

 forms from Asia. The small admixture of Neotropical forms that now occur in 

 North America may have been survivors of this period of stress, or they may be 

 the descendants of the more ancient forms resuming their lost inheritance. Beyond 

 the fact that these few Neotropical forms continue to exist in North America, its 

 fauna seems to be in a broad sense inseparable from that of the Palsearctic area, 

 and, in my belief, is not to be separated from it. The most difficult problems are 

 those connected with the Ethiopian and Indian (which Mr. Wallace calls the 

 Oriental) areas ; but I suppose we must regard them as offshoots from a somewhat 

 earlier condition of the great northern or ' Holarctic ' fauna, and as such to repre- 

 sent a state of things that once existed in Europe and the greater part of Asia. To 

 pursue this subject — one of most pleasing speculation — would now be impossible. 

 I pray you to pardon my prolixity, and I have done. 



The following Reports and Papers were read : — 



1. Report of the Committee on Migration. — See Reports, p. 70. 



2. Report of the Committee on the Fauna and Flora of the Cameroons 

 Mountains. — See Reports, p. 73. 



3. Report of the Committee to arrange for the Occupation of a Talle at the 

 Zoological Statmi at Naples. — See Reports, p. 77. 



4. Report of the Committee on the Zoological Station at Granton. — See 

 Reports, p. 91. 



5. Report of the Committee on the Marine Biological Association Laboratory 

 at Plymouth. — See Reports, p. 59. 



G. The Exploration of Liverpool Bay and the Neighhouring Parts of the 

 Irish Sea by the Liverpool Marine Biology Committee. By Professor 

 W. A. Herdman, D.Sc, F.L.S. 



The work which the L. M. B. C. have set before them is the thorough investi- 

 gation of the fauna and liora of Liverpool Bay. Their aim is not merely to draw 



